


Good Things Really Do Fall Apart

by orphan_account



Series: What Time Really Breeds [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Aromantic Ford Pines, Asexual Ford Pines, Bill Cipher - Freeform, Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines - Freeform, BillDip, Bisexual Bill Cipher, Bisexual Dipper Pines, Dipper Pines - Freeform, Good Things Fall Apart, Happy Ending?, Human Bill Cipher, I'm Bad At Tagging, Lesbian Mabel Pines, M/M, Mabel Pines - Freeform, Memory Erasure, Pacifica Northwest - Freeform, Slow Burn, Tags Are Hard, angstt, mabifica
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dipper Pines is heading back to Gravity Falls for a relaxing vacation from his job of engineer in his prime age; twenty (it's 2020 when this takes place). His Grunkles were sixty-three when he was here last (twelve/thirteen), and when he arrives again as a new, slightly more awkward person, he is shocked to see something intriguing. He might have aged, but it appears as if everyone and everything in Gravity Falls has paused. Aging has stopped for everyone in the town. The trees and plants are exactly the same height, down to the micrometer. Could this be linked to Bill's erasure? Or could it be because... of his own departure?
Relationships: Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines, Pacifica Northwest/Mabel Pines
Series: What Time Really Breeds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1615720
Comments: 8
Kudos: 73





	1. The Decision (Prologue)

"Dipper! You really should take a break once in a while," Mabel Pines groaned, dropping into the chair next to his and slouching in the hard plastic. She had a habit of coming to visit him at work, and it both got on his nerves and made him happy. However, right now, Dipper was so bored, he would have welcomed ANYONE to come say “hi," but he feigned disinterest in the more bubbly twin.

"Not now, Mabel," Dipper said absentmindedly, tapping away at a computer keyboard, the monitor displaying a complicated 3-D model of a bridge's support and sides. As an engineer, he had been working with structures and equations since he started the job. He had skipped freshman, sophomore, and junior year, graduated high school when he was fifteen (hey, it paid to be smart and to be able to email a person who was a **literal genius** whenever he had a question), gotten three years of college-level engineering education, and had been working here for two years with no slipups or misdemeanors. He had always been a hardworking student and employee, and even now, he knew he was one of the few favorites of his bosses. He was maybe a Level Two employee, and climbing fast.

"Diiii **pper!** " Mabel moaned in complaint as he continued to pay no mind to her attention-seeking devices. She had always tried to pull this whenever he came to his workplace, and he had always paid no mind to her whining and begging for attention. "I want to see..."

"I know. You want to see Pacifica again. Don't you think that it's a little odd her texting style hasn't changed since we were in Gravity Falls last? Full of emojis, cutesy, unpunctuated?" Dipper questioned, continuing to key words and complicated equations into his computer absentmindedly. These things that would normally make no sense to the average citizen had turned into old hat for him; this was his everyday work. Math ran across the screen as error messages popped up on it. He slammed his fist on the desk in frustration, and keyed solutions into the textboxes for each mathematical improbability. The error messages cleared up, and he breathed a sigh and relaxed as they disappeared, one-by-one.

"No," Mabel said, sitting up and frowning. "BESIDES, maybe she's the same as she was when we left." Mabel and Pacifica were dating; all Mabel wanted was to be able to see the bratty, rich, blonde girl again in the flesh. Personally, Dipper had no love for her, but hey, to each her own, right?

"People change between thirteen and twenty," Dipper said cautiously. He didn't want to burst her bubble, but there was no way the Pacifica they knew was the same now. He had changed, Mabel had changed, why shouldn't she have changed? He certainly wasn’t the awkward little boy he had been... right? He had matured, and Mabel had matured... somewhat.

"Well, let's go see her then! Take a trip to Gravity Falls, see Pacifica and maybe..." Mabel trailed off.

"Maybe what?" Dipper asked, tilting his head. He had decided this conversation was worth eye contact a few seconds ago, and so, he spun a little in his swivel chair and looked directly at Mabel.

"I wanna see... whether our Grunkles are still... you know..."

"Alive?" whispered Dipper. Mabel nodded. 

"Uh-huh."

"Weeeellllllllllll..." Dipper stretched. "I can talk to my boss..." Mabel always played unfair. She knew that his weak spot was always their Grunkles, and more specifically, Grunkle Ford. He was the only one who ever showed any interest in Dipper’s line of work. Grunkle Stan had always said, “It’s for smarty-pants yahoos who want to show off their degrees,” Mabel always declared, “Pbbt! That sounds like poopwork for poopheads,” but Grunkle Ford had always been happy to look over his calculations and help him. They had stopped texting the younger Pines twins a couple months earlier, with no earlier notice. Dipper had attributed it to their tendency to spontaneously go on "vacations" to find mythic creatures, but Mabel had been nervous about the disappearance of the older set of Pines twins, and if Dipper was being completely honest, he was a little uneasy about the disappearance too. But he didn’t want more adventure. With Gravity Falls, there was no such thing as “quiet vacations.” He just wanted to settle down with someone he liked, have a real home and a life, and forget about his first-ever love. Was that too much to ask for? Nevertheless, he shook his head, and looked back at Mabel’s grinning face.

"Great!" Mabel cheered, earlier conversation about their Grunkles forgotten.

"But don't get your hopes up. They were sixty-something when we left. They're probably gone, Mabel," Dipper advised, ever the reasonable twin. 

When Mabel left fifteen minutes later ("I'm borrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!"), Dipper went to his boss and asked for a vacation. The portly man looked up, staring him in the eye. The younger male wondered in the back of his mind whether this was a good idea. The bigger man’s eye twitched a little as they stared at each other, Dipper longing, but unwilling to break eye contact.

"I see no harm in it," he relented. "Okay Pines. Two weeks off. I don't think you've taken a single day off since you've been here, so I don't see the problem. Hell," he added with an uncharacteristically proud smile, "You could probably take a month or two off, with the two years you've been working here and how much the uppers love you. You're too much of a charmer for your own good."

"Thank you sir," he stuttered, blushing, and pulled out his mobile to text Mabel.

**They were going back to Gravity Falls.**


	2. A Long Way There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, it's just the drive from California to Gravity Falls, Oregon. Thanks to the three who left kudos!

_Traveling with Mabel was both exhausting and more fun than traveling alone,_ Dipper thought. Of course, it wasn't like Dipper had traveled much with anyone EXCEPT Mabel; he was the kind of guy who seemed to push away the opposite sex. _Or the same sex,_ the snide voice in his head remarked faux-calmly. "Shut up," he muttered out loud, gripping the steering wheel of his car even harder, so his knuckles turned white.

Mabel looked over, taking her Mary Jane-clad feet off the dash for a few seconds. "What was that, Dipper?" she asked, furrowing her brows. From Dipper's experience, she hated being left out of anything, be it parties, secrets, or mutterings. Dipper had had to work his ass off to let him talk to Grunkle Ford with any semblance of privacy. He loved her, sure, but that aspect of her could get annoying extremely fast. And in turn, she "put up" with his antisocial behaviors. He dodged invites, parties, and any social gathering like bullets (much like a certain Author-Chan~ we know, heh).

"Nothing," he said, pasting on a fake smile he was sure looked more like a grimace, and turned his eyes (shielded behind thick glasses) back to the road. 

"Look out!" Mabel shrieked, pointing at the long, skinny shadow-like creature that dashed across the road in front of them. From the quick glance they got of it, it was tall, dark, and disturbingly slim, almost looking like a...

"Nightcrawler," Dipper realized. "We must be getting close." They had been driving for close to seven hours and thirty minutes now; they were only about twenty minutes away from the sleepy town.

Mabel voiced his concern with, "How did the creature get out of the border?"

Dipper pursed his lips in obvious worry, but he said, only with a slight tremor in his voice, "I-I'm sure it just..." He trailed off, waving a hand in an airy way that was not entirely convincing, and even Mabel knew he didn't really believe that there was no good answer, but she sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. 

"I'm sure it was just a deer or something," she muttered, in an unsettling, rare tone of doubt and worry. The thread of anxiety pierced Dipper's chest and snaked around his neck, twined its way around his heart and joined its comrades already heavily weighing on him. He felt the panic attack coming, but he took a few deep breaths and pushed it away. The feeling subsided after a few long minutes in which Mabel stared at him like he had grown an extra head. "Just a deer," she repeated in a more certain tone.

"Yeah," Dipper agreed, only relinquishing his grip on the steering wheel slightly. "I'm sure it's fine."

It seemed like ten years later when they reached the sign that read, "Welcome to Gravity Falls!" They laughed together when they realized that the people of the town had never repaired the hole in it made by the golf cart seven years ago. And then, as they saw the first person crossing the street as they got deeper into the heart of town, they gasped. It happened to be Lazy Susan, but it wasn't that that surprised him.

She looked exactly the same. Her hair was still an unnatural shade of blue-grey, and she was still chubby. No new wrinkles, no new _anything._ Her face was still set in a perpetual scowl, her eyelid was still closed, and she walked in such a way that showed her irate disposition; arms locked by her sides, stiffly marching as she had when they were twelve. Her lips were still an overdone scarlet, and her face was still caked in way too much makeup, like she was trying too hard to make herself look younger than sixty, and it WASN'T working for her, if you know what I mean. But that's not the primary thing the Pines twins were fixated on.

"What could this mean?" Dipper mused. He knew Mabel would always know what he meant when he said something, even if he didn't know _himself_ what he meant. Now was one of these times.

Mabel grinned. "It means that the Mystery Twins have a new mystery to solve."


	3. Standstill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They theorize about the state of Gravity Falls.

They wandered through the town, parking (only a bit illegally, to Dipper's dismay and Mabel's excitement) in the lot of Lazy Susan's diner. Everything was at a standstill. The effects of Weirdmageddon had been reversed, and the town was bright and alive, but nothing had changed. Everyone was the same; they looked the same, acted the same, and even walked the same way.

Dipper looked around, his fingers itching to pull out a notebook and begin taking notes, like he used to when he walked around in the forest of Gravity Falls as a twelve-year-old. "What happened?"

Mabel suddenly stopped, pulling Dipper by the hand and looking him seriously in the eyes. "Maybe it has to do with you!"

"Me?" Dipper couldn't imagine himself doing anything to have caused this odd phenomenon of Gravity Falls. After all, for the most part, he was an ordinary kid. He wasn't an all-powerful demon, or a Henchmaniac of Bill's. He was just Dipper without the Journals, and after all, THOSE had been written by a genius who rivaled Albert Einstein in discoveries; his Grunkle Ford. 

"Yeah, you!" Mabel punched his shoulder, giving him one of her bright smiles.

"Let's really think about this. WHY would it be me?" Dipper asked, not wanting to crush one of her more reasonable theories. Hey, when she thinks the destruction of the attic is because of multicolored unicorns, you take what you can get.

"Well, maybe when Bill died, a fraction of his power went into you. Remember how sad we were when we had to go back to California? Maybe you subconsciously wished that it would be the same when you came back next," Mabel theorized.

Now this caught Dipper offguard. That was actually a plausible theory; being that he **had** wished that the little, "sleepy" town would be the same next time he decided to visit. He had never really told anyone, but he didn't want it to change. As a person who saw the world in a realistic way (unlike Mabel), he knew the next time he came back, his Grunkles were sure to be dead, Wendy would be off to college, and who knew what else would be wrong. No offense to women or anything, if Soos was married by the time he came back, he would be much, much different.

"Let's go to the Mystery Shack then, and ask Ford himself. He'll know," Dipper suggested. His sister was agreeable, so they walked back to the lot of Lazy Susan's diner and got back in the car.

They drove to the Mystery Shack in silence. Dipper still knew the way by heart from walking around town, even though he hadn't been there since he was twelve. And, as he pulled into the parking space by his Grunkle Stan's jalopy, he barely dared to look. He wasn't exactly sure if he wanted to know if his Grunkles were dead. But, to both their shock, a very familiar figure walked out to greet them. He was hunched, had silver hair, and donned no fez; Dipper vaguely remembered it being handed over to Soos at his and Mabel’s thirteenth birthday party after the Weirdmageddon fiasco. He wore a pair of striped blue boxers, a stained-with-unknown-substances white tank top, and worn grey slippers. Mabel gasped, standing stock-still, but Dipper walked forward to the figure, still about three inches shorter. Dipper bet it was six if he stood straight, but that was impossible in the figure's age.

Dipper swallowed the thick lump in his throat. "Grunkle Stan?"


	4. Memoriae Vim Extermina

Dipper launched himself at Grunkle Stan, hugging him tightly around the middle. Mabel sobbed heavily into his stomach as she did the same, and Dipper couldn't say his eyes were completely dry either, if he was being honest with himself. Grunkle Stan patted their backs, but it was hesitant.

"I send you kids to the store for milk for five minutes, and you get all soppy? And you're taller too," Grunkle Stan grumbled. 

"You really think it was just five minutes?" Dipper asked, discreetly wiping away a tear. "Grunkle Stan, it's been seven years. You've missed our lives, up to when we left for college."

Grunkle Stan's face scrunched in concern, and Dipper's hopes soared at the prospect that his great-uncle would actually believe him, but then it twisted into humor.

"Oh kid!" Grunkle Stan cackled, wiping away a tear of his own, but not in the same emotion as Dipper and Mabel. "I thought your head was full of cockamamie, but I didn't think," he paused for another fit of hacking laughs, "it was THIS full!"

”This isn’t a joke!” Mabel cried. “You really **don’t** remember? It’s really been seven years.” Tears rolled freely down her face as she shook Grunkle Stan’s shoulders hard. “Come on, you gotta remember, Grunkle Stan!”

"Memoriae vim extermina." Dipper let the incantation pass his lips in a whisper, the words fading on his palate.

"Wh-what?" Mabel sniffled, her crying hiccuping to a stop in surprise. Dipper turned to face her with a grim expression on his face as a dark realization came over him.

"Memoriae vim extermina," Dipper said again, louder and more confidently. "It loosely translates to 'memory erase.' I don't know who did this to him and the town of Gravity Falls, but there's no way we can bring back that it's been seven years since the last time we saw him. It also pauses time in the area it affects; that's why no one's aged. Their lives are paused."

"There's got to be **something** we can do!" Mabel cried, in her typical optimistic way. Dipper had gotten used to it over the years.

"There isn't, Mabel. Memoriae vim extermina is the highest form of a memory erasure spell. Only a..." he trailed off.

"ONLY A **WHAT?** "

"Dream demon," he said in a whisper. "Only a dream demon could break it."

"I'm standing right here, kids," Grunkle Stan grouched. Like Mabel, he hated being left out of things. He just didn't admit it as readily as Mabel did.

"We've got to go get the Journal and see how to resummon Bill!" Mabel gasped, tugging at Dipper's hand.

"That could be really dangerous, Mabel," Dipper said cautiously, resisting at the strong pulls Mabel was exerting. "Let's look through the books upstairs first, before we do something rash, like resummon an all-powerful, evil dream demon."

"Okay, fine, but if we can't get Grunkle Stan to remember, we **have** to bring Bill back!" she wailed. And with that, the Mystery Twins rushed away upstairs to Dipper's bookcase in the attic they had stayed in when they were twelve to see if there was anything on memory erasure.

"Nothing! These books mention the typical memory erasure spells, but absolutely nothing on memoriae vim extermina!" Dipper tossed aside a thick leatherbound volume that had proved useful in the past, but not now. 

"There's nothing in here, either," Mabel groaned, pushing a thin scroll across the floor in an act of pure frustration. Dipper's face contorted as he slipped down, burying his head in his hands.

"The thing about this particular memory erasure spell, Mabel..." he sighed. I didn’t want to say this in front of Grunkle Stan... but the thing... Is that, if you don't break it, it's like cancer. It gets worse and worse, and he and everyone in this town will slowly become shells and forget everyone they love. Just mindless zombies. Grunkle Stan **and** Ford will forget us. This is bad, Mabel. I know I said summoning Bill was dangerous, but if I can't find anything... it might come to bringing back the most powerful dream demon known to the world."


	5. The Simple Art of Loving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper angsting while his sister sleeps.

The next book, and the next, and the next were all pored over, soft, effeminate, glossed-pink lips and chapped, bitten, bleeding lips mouthing the inked, smeared words.

The clock showed hours passing, until they clocked in at four am; they had arrived in Gravity Falls at noon the previous day. Dipper’s head spun, and Mabel had fallen asleep with a thick dusty scroll in her lap two hours ago. He pulled his third (or fifth, he wasn’t thinking super clearly) cup of black coffee and took a long, bitter drink from it, eyes never leaving the yellowed page. His head was starting to swim, and the coffee hadn’t really done anything for the exhaustion creeping into his bones but make his leg bounce and his stomach ache. He was hungry, tired, and his mouth felt like a desert, his tongue like sandpaper. He knew this was nowhere near the last book he had to pore over, and as he read a chronicling of memoriae vim extermina that made his head spin, one entry caught his eye.

“Day 2503. I’ve started to forget things about people outside of this small town. I know my mother used to live in Nebraska, but I can’t remember where or her name. The same goes for my father and my sister. I know they used to be important to me, but I can’t remember them. Neither can anyone else in this town. It’s really terrifying me, and I think maybe...” Then a large smear. “Has something to do with this. In other news...” Then a large anecdote on his personal life, what he did that day, and other useless-to-Dipper information. He growled in annoyance and threw aside the composition notebook. If whoever wrote this had been a bit more careful, he might know what caused the memory spell, and maybe he could have fixed Grunkle Stan. After Day 2555, the entries stopped abruptly. Day 2554 had been filled with worry, as the person who wrote the diary could not recall anything about his mother and where she lived, as he could in Day 2503. Then, Day 2555 was scrawled at the top of the notebook page, but nothing below. The rest of the notebook was empty pages; not a word, not a letter, not even a doodle.

Dipper sat back, rubbing under his glasses and groaning in exhaustion. He had been so close to figuring out what memoriae vim extermina was caused by; so close, he could practically taste it. But just like every girl he had ever liked, it had been snatched from him by the cruel, unfeeling hands of life. He had fallen in love with a girl at his robotics college, and she had been hurt by him, like he expected. His heart clenched as he pushed aside the memory of the girl with the short black hair, bright eyes hidden behind a black frame and the luminous, charming smile.

He snatched another book and began to read it, hands shaking at the painful recalling. Mabel had teased him mercilessly for his crush on her, until she convinced him to tell her how he felt. He did so, and she had laughed happily, telling him she liked him too. They had spent the whole day together, laughing and falling in love. They did love each other, dearly, but she had a mental illness, and fell into a depressive spiral after a year of what Dipper thought was love built to last. She had pushed him, Mabel, and her family away, and eventually killed herself, and Dipper, to this day, was convinced it had been his fault. And even now, when he should have been working on figuring out how to reverse memoriae vim extermina, he tilted his head back on the bed he had been bracing his back against, and let the tears fall as he cried himself to sleep for the girl he had barely known.

He woke up the next morning, face tearstained, head heavy. He had cried in his sleep, as he had for so many nights after the girl's death.

Oh, he missed her.

But he couldn't afford any mourning for the girl; classes took it out of him, and he had been swept up in a torrent of thankfully-distracting schoolwork. After a number of months spent crying in secret over her, he had gotten up at some point, and beat himself up for it. She was dead, and wasn't coming back, no matter how many times he wept over her grave, or how much he willed her back. She had taken her life, it was Dipper's fault, and that was that. Sitting up, he noticed Mabel was still asleep, slumped against the side of her own bed, scroll on her lap and sleeping peacefully. Dipper scoffed. _At least **she** hadn't lost the one person she fell in love with,_ he thought bitterly. Sure, he loved his sister, but they were polar opposites sometimes. She was the kind of social butterfly who had had her first boyfriend in sixth grade, while Dipper had never dated anyone before his _junior year of college._ She had lost her V-Card to a boy in eighth grade; Dipper had found the pregnancy test in her bag, which led to a long lecture on safe sex. Thank God for everyone involved, it was negative. Dipper was still as virgin-like as untouched snow, or whatever. They loved each other, but they simply could not relate to each other in any way, even if they **tried** to find something in common.

Dipper scrawled a note on a pink sticky that had been lying around, telling them he was on a walk in the forest surrounding the Mystery Shack, grabbed his keys, and left the house in a flurry of sadness and worry.


	6. The Man Under the Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet our friend, the Dorito!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I love to see comments. Kudos are great but I'd love to hear from you all on how you like how this is turning out. I'm not sure about it so >< PLEASE tell me how you think it's coming along!

He hated himself. Of course, that wasn’t a new point, but it was particularly strong as he rocked back and forth under a tree. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The dim grey of the early-morning sky showed in patches through the canopy; it wasn’t raining yet, but it was close. The waves rolled over him, crashing harder than they had since Ally (that’s the girl’s name) had died. He stood from his place, and started walking to the statue of Bill from what felt like so long ago, just as a distraction. As he walked, he started to hum, and eventually sing, a tune that used to be his favorite. 

“Disco girl, coming through, that girl is you…” His voice picked up volume at the “ooh-ooooh” part. It felt good to be singing something from his childhood, and it showed in his eyes as some of the light came back and he laughed lightly, but it was doused like water on fire as he stopped on hearing a noise from the forest from ahead. It sounded like laughing; maniacal, hauntingly insane laughter, but it stopped just as quickly as it started. He started to creep forward; the laughing had unnerved him, but he dismissed it as he tread lightly to Bill’s statue. He knelt, and just gazed at the figure that had been so dangerous seven years ago, and was now so harmless. 

Just then, he heard groans emanating from his left. They sounded like whoever was making them was in pain; bad pain. Rushing over to the prone figure to the left of the statue, he bent over the person. A shock of short blond hair covered their eyes, which were golden. Well, they WOULD have been golden, but the man wore an eyepatch on his right eye. When Dipper touched the other’s abdomen, his hand came away red. “You’re hurt,” he whispered. “We need to get you to a hospital.” The man didn’t, or couldn’t, respond. Dipper pulled out his mobile and dialed 911.

 _“911, what’s your emergency?”_ the operator said, sounding a bit bored.

“I’m in the forest surrounding the Mystery Shack,” Dipper said slowly; he thought he was in shock. “There’s a man here. He’s badly hurt, and he's bleeding heavily, and needs to get to a hospital right away.”

A pause. _“Police and medical personnel should be there in just a few minutes,”_ she said finally. _“Please stay on the line. Now, use your shirt or his to try to stem the flow of blood from the injury if there is any.”_ Dipper did as he was told, ripping his shirt into thick strips and shoving one into the wide wound. As he felt the man's forehead, he let out a sob of horror and worry, as is common when dripping with your own or someone else's blood. 

"He has a bad fever, and his eyes are glassy!" Dipper gasped, fearful for what would happen to this man's life. From the bloodloss, or the sickness, he would most likely die or come too close for any human to have to.

The woman on the line paused again, and Dipper could practically hear the gears turning and spinning in her head turning as she furiously tried to assess the situation of the man and his life. _"Okay. He probably has an infection in the wound. What kind of state is he in?"_

"Hmm?"

 _"Is he relatively clean, appearance-wise?"_ she clarified. _"Is he in any way soiled?"_

Dipper took a closer look. The man's hair seemed clean, but his what-was-supposed-to-be yellow hoodie was filthy, and so were his black jeans and yellow Converse. It seemed improbable that his skin and hair would be in such perfect condition, while his clothes were in such a lamentable one. He tried to brush some of the dust and mud off the man's sweatshirt, while also whispering quiet, soothing words and stroking the man's hair out of his eyes. "His clothes are dirty, but other than that, his skin and hair look pretty clean."

_"Okay, that's good. I have to go handle another emergency, but medical assistance is on the way, and you are now authorized to end the call."_

Dipper ended the call with a "thanks" and a quick touch of the "hang-up" button. "You're gonna be okay, sir," he murmured, brushing a lock of blond out of the man's vacant golden eye. "It's okay. They're going to take you to the hospital. It's going to be okay. I'll go with you, and I'll make sure you're going to live." He wasn't exactly sure why he was making these obviously-empty promises, or why he was still here. The police would be able to find him at this point, and why should he care, anyway? Still, he couldn't seem to leave the man behind. He had to be by his side, nevermind the reason why. Even if he didn't know, himself.

Just then, his ears perked up as the wailing sound of ambulances and the blue and red lights flashed. He jumped away from the man at what seemed like the speed of light, cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling, "He's here!" then pointing at the place the man lay.

"Thank you, sir," the blue-clad policewoman said, tipping her hat to him. "You've done well. Would you like to accompany this man to the hospital?"

Dipper was caught off-guard. "Y-yeah," he stuttered. The woman nodded, and he hopped into the patient compartment of the ambulance, and sat beside the man's prone form, and continued stroking his hair out of his eyes. "It's gonna be okay," he whispered again, before letting his hand drop as he blushed and realized what this would look like to an outsider. He was bisexual, and had been for a while. A closeted bisexual seemed better than a ridiculed, but out bisexual, or at least it did in his own mind. He wasn't even out to MABEL, and she was lesbian. Dipper sighed. 

Maybe for now, it was best to keep this aspect of himself quiet. He planned to officially come out later, but he couldn't now.

_He just **couldn't.**_


	7. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The drive to the hospital. Plus, we learn some more about the Dorito.

The ride was long and uneventful as the ambulance personnel did their best to drive as fast as possible without killing a **lot** of people. Dipper felt nausea and the feeling of acid crawling up his throat at the reckless driving on a bumpy road, but he shoved it down, and never once removed his hand from the man's hair, or stopped whispering calming words. Why he did, he didn't know; it wasn't like he could hear him, but he did so anyway; he thought it made him feel better about the man's present condition. Suddenly, his phone chirped his ringtone for Mabel, and by some heroic effort, he managed to keep one hand on the man's burning forehead, and with the other, fish the phone out of his pocket and press it unceremoniously to his ear.

" _DIP! WHERE ARE YOU?"_ the shrieking voice chastised. Dipper fumbled in surprise, and managed to sandwich it between his shoulder and his ear.

"I left a note, Mabel," he said tiredly, still brushing hair out of the man's eye. He didn’t want to explain what his situation was, and wanted to avoid it at all costs.

 _"I know you did, and I saw it, but that... wait... are those police sirens?"_ she asked suspiciously. _"Mason Pines. Where are you?"_

He gave up trying to hide it with a sigh, and mumbled, "I'm... going to the hospital with a stranger I discovered in the woods."

 _"YOU WHAT?!"_ Mabel screeched.

“I mean what I said, I said what I meant,” Dipper responded dryly, as Mabel berated him on the dangers of whatever this was.

_“But Dipper, don't you know how risky this is? You don’t know this man. He could be a rapist or…”_

“The greatest philanthropist this world has ever seen. He could be anything! I just want to learn his name for when he wakes up, then I’ll never have to talk to him again.”

 _“Are you sure you’re alright?”_ Mabel said worriedly. _“You’re never this trusting. You JUST MET the guy, and he hasn’t said a single word to you. AND we still have the problem of the memory spell to solve.”_

“I know,” Dipper huffed irritably. “I just wanna make sure he’s okay. TRUSTING someone isn’t the same as wanting to make sure they don’t DIE. And we have plenty of time.”

“ _Okay, bro-bro. If you’re SURE...”_

“I am,” Dipper said firmly.

_“Okay. If you're absolutely sure, I won’t oppose you.”_

“Okay. I have to go, Mabel. We’re at the hospital.”

“ _Kay, bro-bro. I love you_.”

“Love you too.” He ended the call and followed the blond into the hospital as the paramedics wheeled him in. 

About two hours passed before the doctor came into the waiting room, calling for "Dipper Pines" as he sat in a chair, head in hands in his normal anxious state. “Our John Doe is stable,” he said seriously. “He will most likely make a full recovery. He is resting at the moment, but if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to his room. He refused to tell us his name, asking for the person who saved him. The doctor tread confidently down the halls, with a few turns, and finally, opening the door to Room 224 and ushering Dipper inside, closing the door quietly.

The man’s head lolled towards him lazily as he gave him a pain medication-riddled grin. “Hey. So you’re the one he said saved me.”

“Y-yes. My name’s Dipper. What’s yours?” Dipper said awkwardly, almost cringing at the stupid opening question. He was so goddamn awkward; couldn’t he think of any better openers than “what’s your name?”

"It's..." His face scrunched up in distress. "I don't remember. After the pain in my stomach, everything went blank. I... I don't remember anything." Tears welled up in the strange golden eyes as he thought.

Not wanting to stress the injured blond, Dipper smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "That's absolutely fine. Do you have anything you want me to call you?"

"Hmm..." the man hummed, thinking. "I like Bill, I think."

"Okay," Dipper said, heavy misgivings making their way to the forefront of his mind. I mean, someone can wear yellow and like the name "Bill" without being totally evil, right? "Bill it is. How do you feel, _Bill?_ " He stressed the name with a smile.

Bill grinned back. "Pretty well, if you ask me. Just hurts a bit."

"That's good, and I'll come to visit later, but I have to go," Dipper said, turning to leave. As much as he'd like to stay and talk to his newfound friend, the memory spell was still heavily in play, and very dangerous. This wasn’t safe, to waste time and lag around while everyone in Gravity Falls was suffering a condition that could cause them to forget everything.

"Alright, Dipper." Bill smiled and leaned back on his pillows as Dipper hastily left the little white room.


	8. A Dark Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Blue Dorito, and Dip realizes exactly WHO Bill is.

As Dipper left, he noticed a man with his head in his hands sitting in the waiting room. The man sported a shock of electric blue hair, a blue button-up the same color, a black dress vest, a black bowtie, a pair of black dress pants, and loafers. But when the man lifted his head to look Dipper in the eyes with his cerulean ones, Dipper was shocked to see that his face was a perfect carbon copy of Bill’s, just softer and paler. All in all, they looked almost the same, save for the fact that he looked a bit more easy to manipulate than Bill. His face was bruised, the soft pale skin red and purple in places all over his cheeks. Dipper, without thinking, blurted out, “I didn’t know Bill had a twin.” The blue-haired man jumped, and his body went rigid, like he was surprised to hear anyone speak to him. The fearful, cerulean eyes gazed back; they clearly portrayed his innocence and worry.

“U-um, yes. N-nice to meet you. I’m Will,” he offered shyly, stuttering a bit and holding out his hand. Obviously, this man had extreme anxiety around people.

Dipper smiled warmly, trying to put Will more at ease, taking the proffered hand and shaking it gently but firmly. “Hi, Will, I’m Dipper Pines. Your brother is gonna be just fine; I’ll make sure of it.” Were these empty promises? Yes. Were these promises he would be willing to walk from hell and back to keep? Also yes.

“Really?” Will’s big blue eyes widened with an innocence that made Dipper’s heart ache with something he hadn’t felt for a long time, what, he wasn’t sure. It was like a vice of iron clenching his heart like he didn’t think anything could.

“Yeah,” Dipper said firmly, nodding. He wasn’t about to show any signs of this being a lie, because it WASN’T. He would do anything to make sure the man with the innocent blue eyes got his brother back. He knew what it was like to slowly lose your twin, even if they were still there. He had mostly lost his to Pacifica when the two girls started dating. “If I have anything to do with this, your brother’s going to be good as new in a few days or less.” 

“T-thanks, Dipper.” Will beamed with the reassurance of his brother’s safety, as Dipper left for the Mystery Shack.

That afternoon saw Dipper anxious and worried about the blond. He sat in the little shared attic both he and Mabel slept in, on his worn bed, rocking back and forth, head in hands. Even if he knew Bill would make it out okay, he worried. A man that donned the color yellow, was found near Bill’s old statue, and **also** called himself Bill wasn’t someone to be immediately trusted. He had had horrible PTSD from the events of the catastrophic Weirdmageddon, and he still occasionally had terrifying nightmares of an Eldritch-style, bloodred Bill Cipher chasing him through the Fearamid, screaming inhumanly about how he wanted to disassemble the molecules of the Pines twins. Even now, it was the most horrifying memory he could recall in his whole life. But now he had no choice but to help who he thought could be the enemy because of his stupid, stupid decision to ride to the hospital with him, a Fool’s Promise, and a dumb sense of wanting _more_ out of life.

“Hey, bro-bro?” Mabel called up the stairs.

Dipper raked a hand through his hair and smoothed his worried expression. “Yeah, Mabel?” he called back, trying to keep his tone light and happy as best he could.

“Um… we‘re about to have dinner, Dips, do you want any food?” Mabel knew that when Dipper was worried, pressing the issue of consumption wasn’t wise and would just stress him more.

“I’m okay, thanks Mabes,” Dipper called back. He appreciated that she never forced him into eating, and as he heard her footsteps descend the staircase and a muttered “if you insist,” he pressed his head into his hands, and let a few tears fall from his eyes onto his wrist. He let himself slip to the ground, pressing the heels of his palms against his browbones and crying his eyes out, letting the tears slip from his eyes. Everything had just been so much recently. He hadn’t thought of Ally for a few months and he had been thrown back to thinking about her, Bill could be a villain that had tried to kill him and Mabel, and on top of all that, he promised Will that he would try to keep Bill safe, even if he was the enemy. He shuddered, curled up on his side, and went to sleep on the floor.

The next day, he went back to the hospital to check on Bill. It was tightly packed this time, full of people talking worriedly. “I’m here to see a Bill?” he said, walking over to speak to the woman at the desk.

The woman peered over her expensive-looking cat-eye glasses. “You’re Dipper Pines, right?” she said through a thick wad of strongly-scented bubblegum. She pronounced “Pines” with a heavy southern accent, snapping her gum as she said it. _Pahnes._

“Um… I’m… yeah,” Dipper mumbled, trying to choke down a gag at the smell of the gum. He didn’t want to seem impolite, but this woman really was obnoxious.

She blew a bubble and popped it, sending a strong whiff of overly-sweet bubblegum towards his face. “I can confirm that you are on the ‘allowed visitors’ list. Down the hall, Room 224.” She smiled a crocodile-like smile, revealing her lipstick-smudged yellow teeth.

“Thank you,” Dipper muttered hurriedly, eager to get away from the bubblegum scent and to see Bill again.

When he got to Bill’s room, he took a deep breath, forced a smile he hoped didn’t show the uneasiness he felt, and opened the door. “Hey,” he murmured softly, almost soothingly. Bill sat up in bed, grinning.

“Heya, Dipper,” he said, smirking. He didn’t look to be in much pain; his expression was relaxed, his demeanor loose and calm, not tense.

“H-how are you feeling?” Dipper asked, sitting in the chair by Bill’s bed. 

The bedridden one shrugged. “Pretty good,” he said. “The doc said I could leave in maybe a week. Speed-healing seems to be my thing.” The gash was wrapped in bandages and gauze, so Dipper assumed it wasn’t closed up yet, and was possibly still prone to bleeding.

About six million alarms went through Dipper’s head when he heard Bill was speed-healing. He leaned forward. “Do you remember your last name? Even a hint, a clue of it?”

Bill scrunched up his face in thought. “Hmm…” he mumbled. “I think it meant ‘code?’ But I don’t really know. It started with a ‘C,’ meant ‘code,’ and people used to call me by it and not my first name.” 

Alarms sounded even louder in Dipper’s head as he launched himself from the chair and stumbled as fast as possible towards the door. When he had regained his voice, he choked, “Cipher.” 

Bill snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that sounds right; Cipher!”

“That means your first name is Bill. Bill Cipher,” Dipper gasped. Images of Eldritch Bill Cipher flooded through his head.

“That sounds even better; what a cool name. Bill Cipher,” he tried. “That sounds familiar. That must be mi-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence; Dipper emitted a high inhuman screech of primal fear, and dashed out of the hospital as fast as his legs could carry him, catching the eyes of the people in the waiting room, breathing hard. “No, no, no,” he mumbled, stumbling over and falling onto a stone bench, head in hands and sobbing with terror due to his PTSD recurring. He rocked back and forth, back and forth, over and over again, murmuring to himself. “I took Bill fucking Cipher to the hospital. No, no, no…”


	9. Bill Or Ally?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper Angsts; Part 13,257,218? I'm not sure at this point.

(DISCLAIMER: ALLY IS AN OC I MADE UP. SHE IS NOT A MANIFESTATION OF MYSELF IN THE STORY. ALSO THERE IS DREAM SMUT AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER-)

He raced down the streets of Gravity Falls back to the Mystery Shack, tears streaming down his face. He caught some odd looks, but he was panicking too much to care. _Bill Cipher was, inexplicably, with no memory of what he had tried to do to the town seven years earlier,_ **_back_** _._ **_THE_ ** _Bill Cipher. The demon who tried to kill him and the rest of the Pines family. BILL FUCKING **CIPHER**. _

Once he got to the Mystery Shack, he threw himself back into his and Mabel’s room, slamming the door, and sitting with his back to the side of his bed, head in hands and rocking back and forth. 

“Bro-bro? You in there?” Mabel’s concerned voice came through the door.

“Fuck it!” he shouted, trying to suppress the knifelike pain trying to push its way through his cranium at the sound of his sister's voice. Somehow, **everything** seemed to remind him of his lost love, of Bill, of something he could never place. What was he thinking? He loved **Ally,** not Bill. He hadn’t felt this... strange attraction since Ally had died. Now it surged back, but for a different person than it had been awakened by for the first time. “Mabel, I’ve had it! Fuck it! Fuck it all! I’m done! I’m done feeling this... fuck...” He sunk down even further, clutching his head in his hands hard as he rocked, trying to forget the memory of the stupid girl with the stupid smile and the stupid eyes. It was all **stupid**. He was devastated over something he thought he was **over;** the girl with the sly smile he used to love. His Ally.

She opened the door, a gentle expression on her kind, sweet face. “Dip-Dop?” she asked, coming ever closer to his form. Her concern wasn't unfounded; he had lashed out, both at himself and others when he had had anxiety attacks in the past.

“No!” He pushed her back, away from him, hard. She landed on her side, letting out a grunt of pain as her head hit the floor with a sickening crack from the force of Dipper's shove. This only made it harder not to cry for both of them as she rubbed her head, sitting up; he had hurt her, just like he feared. “I can’t… God, **fuck**... I can’t hurt any more people… Mabel… I’m so sorry...” He curled up and began to cry, the tears flowing down his cheeks. His skin almost seemed to bubble and burn on contact from the acid the salty liquid contained, like it was allergic to its own bitter, salty fluid.

“Shh… Dipper, what happened?” she asked, sitting near him, but not touching him. She knew better than to do that while he was falling apart like this. “You can tell me anything, bro. What happened?” Her hazel eyes were wide, simply gazing at Dipper. She really was a shooting star; a beacon of hope for all to admire and to wish on. She was everlasting, and even when Dipper was in the darkest of night, she was still there to bear his pain with him and to be by his side when he needed her.

“Ally… she… and Bill…” He broke down again as more images of his late lover passed before his eyes. Her smile. Her luminous eyes. The sunset light glinting off her glasses as she tugged him by the hand to the picnic she had laid out at the highest point in all of Gravity Falls. “Ally… died,” he choked out. He so desperately wanted, no, **needed** to tell someone about the pain his late girlfriend had gone through. “She… killed herself… and I didn’t even realize she was in pain until…” He broke down again just thinking about the fact that he hadn’t even known she was hurting until she had gone. What kind of boyfriend had he been? Why had he been so insensitive and idiotic, to just overlook her pain? Had he even noticed that something was wrong, in the year they spent as boyfriend and girlfriend? Even **Gideon Gleeful** probably would have been able to tell Ally wasn’t well, but you know who didn't? You guessed it; Dipper Pines. 

“Shh,” Mabel soothed, pulling her brother’s head into her lap like a mother would to her child. He let her. “She knew you loved her. She loved you too, I know she did.” Mabel gazed at the ceiling as she held back the tears for her childhood friend. Her **own** memories of Ally flashed before her; the way they used to play together as kids, the way she used to throw back her head when she laughed, the way she never seemed to cry, the way her smile seemed to light up the... no. She might not have known about Ally’s suicide, seeing as the girls had had a falling out in seventh grade, but now, she needed to be strong for her brother. She regretted more than ever the fight. It had been stupid, and if she was being honest, it had been all her fault, and she had never apologized.

“If she did,” Dipper gasped through heavy, loud sobs, “She wouldn’t have taken her life.” He knew it was stupid how much he **cared** about her. She was dead, and had been for a while now. “She’s gone… oh, Ally…” More sobs wracked his thin frame as another wave of memories of Bill and Ally hit him. Their faces blurred together; images went transparent and layered together until Dipper had no idea who was Bill and who was Ally. Eyes flashed emerald, then hazel-gold, then paler, golden-streaked green. Hair blurred blond and black. Their skin tones blended and overlapped; Ally’s icy pale to Bill’s suntanned gold. Their bodies also began to shift and blend until neither one was distinguishable; Alex had a slim waist, yet she was curvy in all the places a normal female would be, whereas Bill was obnoxiously thin; he had a fit, yet extremely narrow body. One thing remained constant though; one small comfort. Their smirks were exactly the same; sly, cocky, and confident. Bill and Ally had the same smile. The two people both laughed at him with no real mocking bite, and held out their hands to him, like he was on the ground and they were offering him a hand up. One, however, blazed with beautiful cerulean flames which begged you to reach out and touch them, and let them curl around your hands and body, while the other’s remained human and non-magical, just a helping hand when he most needed it. He didn't take either of their hands though; who could he trust anymore,

“Ally’s not gone,” Mabel insisted, stroking his hair in a sisterly, comforting way (THERE'S NO PINECEST HERE, THEY'RE IN OREGON, NOT ALABAMA). The iconic pine tree hat, what gave him his soulname, almost always perched on Dipper's head, fell to the floor in a discarded fashion. Neither Dipper nor Mabel made any move to pick it up or set it aside in a less scattered way, let alone put it back on his head. “Ally’s only gone if you try to forget her or sweep her memory under the rug. You have to remember her and honor her. You can’t just pretend she never existed. She’s not gone if you commemorate her.”

“Yes, she is,” Dipper pressed. “She just… killed herself… like I didn’t exist... or mean anything to her. She’s fucking **dead**.” Dipper hated feeling the waves of sadness that hit him so hard, like the shoreline slapping a coast over and over on a stormy night, wearing it away into sand until it looked nothing like its rough predecessor. “She never cared,” he whispered as he felt sleepiness overtake him. “She didn’t care enough about me to stay.” As he slipped into a dark, dream-filled sleep before Mabel could say anything, he could have sworn he felt another acidic tear impact his cheek, one that was most certainly not his own.

The dream he had was definitely not the one he expected.

Soft hands traced his sides, touched him, teased him. He mewed under his breath as he writhed into the person’s touch on his flesh, as his clothes were ripped off and he was bared to the world, eyes screwed up in the utmost pleasure a mere human could possibly experience. He purred as he reveled in the contact of the person’s warm hands. But when he opened his eyes to gaze lustfully at them, they weren’t a _she._ They were a _he._ The man who gazed back with mirrored lust in his eyes had a shock of unruly blond hair, not asymmetrical, choppy black hair, and his eyes were a rich golden with touches and splatters of brown hazel and darker gold, not emerald green with streaks of silver. This man didn’t wear glasses. But that smirk... that perfect smirk... oh, so similar to Ally’s. Dipper wanted to struggle away; this wasn’t right. He loved **Ally.** Not the golden-haired man. **Ally.** He wanted to pull away from the embrace; oh, did he want to, but he... **couldn’t.** The man’s lips, his fingers, his grip; they were everywhere, all over his body. They were on his neck, his chest, his stomach, **everywhere.** He whimpered pitifully, begging for more of the blissful stimulation as he bucked into the hands, writhing and moaning. He let out a cry as he came, but again, it wasn’t the name he expected. He just let it out, with no abandon, a pitiful, overstimulated plead. No force on earth could have changed or challenged the name that passed the anxiety-bitten lips, no god, no power could have altered the sound of pure pleasure. He wanted to call out Ally’s name, but he couldn’t force his dream-self to do it. This was a game he couldn’t win, a battle he had no chance of fighting. So he just let out the name that wanted to pass his lips the most, the one practically leaping from the tip of his tongue as he came hard to the feeling of the blond man smirking, dominating his pale, whippet-thin frame and easily covering him.

”Bill!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh guys, sorry for the slow update. Things have been kind of hectic with cancellations where I live because of the coronavirus. Please leave a comment or just criticize this to hell, I love feedback ^^
> 
> I’m having a bit of writer’s block; I might disappear for a bit to think and try to salvage this completely freeform fanfic, or start a new one, or something, idk. I’ll be back though; this is just getting started!


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